


I didn't mean that

by IvySprings



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/M, Growing Up, Human AU, M/M, they start at age 8 and then...they get older
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-10-22 18:12:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17667584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IvySprings/pseuds/IvySprings
Summary: This is a fanfic from 2012 that I'm rewritting because its 2019 and theres no fucking rules.Natalia and her siblings make the giant move from Europe to a cozy town in California, next door to the most obnoxious boy she's ever met.





	1. Chapter 1

When I moved to California as a child, I was confused as to why my older sister told me to wear a scarf when I got off the plane. It’s not really warm in summer over there, she said. Not like home. At home the winters were cold and biting, the summers warm and inviting. As we boarded the plane to endure almost a full day of travel, I thought about everything I was leaving behind. The home I had come to love for 8 years has a new family in it, with a new little girl sleeping in my room. When we were told of the move, my sister had tears in her eyes as she told us that she would be able to finally give us the home we deserve. All I knew was that we were leaving. My brother seemed to take it better than I did. She had been working to move us since I was 5 apparently. And now here we were, sleepy eyed and making our way off the plane. Yekaterina carried me off, my brother Ivan at her side pulling a suitcase with some of our clothes. We had the rest of them shipped about a week before we left for good. I had slept for a few hours on the plane but still couldn’t keep my eyes open. When I woke up again, my sister was helping me into a car. Shaking the sleep off, I adjusted myself in the seat, and off we went.

The house was bigger than I thought it would be. Back in Europe, we had a single story with Ivan and I sharing a room, and Yekaterina with her own. Here, we had two stories, and us Yekaterina told us in the car, we would all have our own rooms, and now we would have 2 bathrooms instead of one! I began to nod off in the car once again…  
When I woke up, I was in a room I didn’t recognize. It was painted blue, with posters of cowboys and an American flag hanging on the wall. I was in some different clothes and assumed that Yekaterina had changed me into something easier to sleep in. Ivan was with me, kneeling on the side of the bed and asleep with his head on his arms. I nudged him awake.  
“Ivan...Ivan!” I said in Russian, unsure of who would hear me. He groaned and opened one eye to look at me.   
“You’re awake finally..”  
“Where are we?”  
He yawned and stretched before responding.  
“We’re at a friend of Rina’s house...you’re sleeping in one of the kids beds.”  
I swung my legs over the side and slid off the mattress. Ivan got himself up and walked with me out into the hallway, and down the stairs. It smelled wonderful downstairs, someone was making some sort of stew.   
“Francis, my sister’s awake.”  
“Oh! I hope she’s well rested.”  
We walked through the living room and towards the kitchen. It was a little steamy. A tall blonde man was in the kitchen, stirring a giant pot on the stove. He saw us and welcomed us with a smile. “Well, I hope you had a good nap upstairs! I make sure my children only sleep on the best mattresses.”  
He wiped his hands on a towel and approached us, getting on a knee to look at us.   
“Hello lovely, I’ve met your brother and sister but not you. You’re Natalia, right?”  
I nodded silently. He rubbed my shoulder gently. “Welcome to our home, and welcome to America. Your sister said that you fell asleep in the taxi on the way here so I told her to put you in Alfred’s room.”  
I tilted my head at him.  
“How do you know my sister?”  
“Well, I don’t! We’ve lived in the neighborhood for a few years, and I’m always happy to help out a new neighbor.”  
“My sister trusts others too easy.”  
Ivan nudged my arm, a signal that I was being too blunt. The man didn’t seem to take offense and merely laughed.   
“Oh, how rude of me, I haven’t even introduced m-”  
“You’re Francis, I heard my brother say your name.”   
Another nudge. I pressed my lips together tightly.   
“Well, no point in repeating! Now, tell me lovelies..”  
He got up and went into the kitchen. “Do you like stew? I’m making some but I always have leftovers.”  
My mouth began to water, and my stomach grumbled. I didn’t eat much before getting on the plane, and between falling asleep and waking up during the travel, nothing at all. Francis probably saw the hunger in my eyes and laughed. “I’ll bring some over when I drop you back off at home, alright? This one’s simple with beef, potatoes, and carrots, but there’s a lot, and I’m sure you’re all exhausted from the travel. One less thing for your sister to worry about.”  
“I love potatoes,” I blurted out. “They’re my favorite.”  
Francis laughed.   
“I’ll be sure to include some extra for you.”  
The front door to his home slammed open, and two children sped inside. Ivan grabbed me and pulled me to the side to avoid a collision.  
“Alfred! Matthew! What did I tell you about runnin-”  
The two blonde boys who ran in had already disappeared upstairs. Francis sighed, going to the door to make sure it was closed properly.  
“Those two have so much energy.”  
An obnoxious voice from upstairs rang to us.  
“DAD!!! SOMEONE WAS IN MY BED!”  
A boy bounded back down the stairs, short choppy blonde hair and glasses framing his face. He made eye contact with me, then shouted again. “There’s a GIRL here?!”  
“Alfred, please. Manners. They’re our new neighbors,can you please calm down?”  
The loud boy was named Alfred then.   
“You must give your dad a headache, Alfred. I hope you don’t do the same to me.”  
I snickered at Ivan’s words, which seemed to annoy Alfred a little bit.  
“Well, it’s whatever! A pretty girl slept in my bed and I’m not even in middle school yet!”  
He gave a toothy grin as slapped Ivan’s arm. “You guys are gonna be stuck with me if your mom is friends with my dads! You can sleep in my bed whenever you want, pretty girl. Just as long as I’m not there, heheh!”  
“It better stay that way young man.”  
I left the group of men to look outside. A nice suburban neighborhood, a few fences and gates. It was nearing dusk. When I turned to look again, I saw my sister coming up the walkway, looking absolutely exhausted. I ran to the door and swung it open, running into her arms, wrapping my tiny arms around her.  
“Well, good morning my love, did you sleep well?”  
Francis called from the doorway for her to come inside, take a load off.

Francis insisted that we stay for dinner since we were all there. I helped him set the table while Alfred asked my siblings many questions about our life in Europe. His husband, Antonio, was a professor in the city. He was a tall man with green eyes and golden skin, smelled like fresh baked bread. He was almost friendlier than Francis, which already seemed hard to beat. The evening went by fast, and soon we had to head back to our new home. Francis and Antonio sent us home with leftovers so we didn’t have to worry about making dinner tomorrow night.  
Back home, Ivan and I had to share a bedroom, but thankfully with our own beds. My room was painted a dark purple. Boxes of my belongings were neatly stacked around the room. It was going to probably take me all day tomorrow to get them all sorted out, and that’s if I’m not super tired tomorrow. We had returned home at 6, so I thought I would try and put away a few of my clothes, starting with a box of my many, many skirts. Tucked away safely between the fabric was a gallon ziplock bag full of my various hair bows. I plopped the bag on my small vanity, and started to work on getting my skirts hung properly. I got about halfway through the box, and was way more exhausted than I had thought, despite all the sleeping I had done on the trip. Next thing I knew, I was barely awake, being carried into my bed by Ivan.


	2. Chapter 2

The first day of school. We were walked there by Francis, along with Alfred and Matthew. Everything felt fine with me until Ivan walked away with his class. I was alone, standing in a line of children I didn’t know and already knew I wasn’t from around here. Some were whispering to each other, possibly about me. Alfred and Matthew weren’t in my class, so I didn’t even have the comfort of at least one familiar face. Even if it was Alfred. Our teacher, a tall woman with long brown hair and green eyes, lead us inside her classroom, and told us to find our assigned seats. Desks were set up in clusters of 4, and I was sat with 2 other girls and a boy. Emma, Angelique, and Gilbert. Emma had a blonde bob and green eyes, pink cheeks speckled with freckles. Angelique had a deep skin tone and thick, black hair tied neatly into ponytails. The girls were sweet enough, but something about Gilbert felt off. He had extremely light hair that was almost white, and dull red eyes. He smiled smugly at me whenever we made eye contact, but didn’t say much at all to me directly. Emma and Angie took an instant liking, talking to me excitedly when we broke for recess after 2 hours of introductions to the class and creating folders for our future school work, something that the teacher, Mrs. Hedervary, said that she was going to try to not assign too much. She was married to a music teacher that works at one of the high schools in the town.

“You moved over the summer to here? From Europe? That’s so far!”  
“My mom told me that flying from Europe can take a whole day, and you slept! That sounds like a dream, I wish I could sleep that long every day.”  
I smiled and gave short, straight forward answers. As nice as they were, I didn’t know them and wasn’t totally comfortable with elaborating on a lot of things. A shout came from across the playground.  
“Hey! Natalieeeeeee!”  
My smile went flat upon hearing Alfred’s grating voice. He ran towards us after jumping off the swing he was on, almost tripping a few times on his untied shoelaces. Emma and Angelique seemed to share my slight discomfort with Alfred, turning their noses up when he got close.   
“Ewww, what do you want Alfred? We’re talking to our new friend!” said Emma.  
Alfred laughed. “She lives next door to me! So she’s my friend too!”  
“Nuh uh, she’s our friend!” said Angelique.  
The two girls grabbed either of my arms and pulled me back a little.   
“We’re gonna keep her away from stinky boys like you, she doesn’t need to be around you!”  
“AND her name is Natalia! Not Natalie!”  
I blinked at Alfred, who smiled and rubbed his nose.   
“Whatever you say, giiiirls. She’s gonna be my playmate outside of school. I’ll see you later Natalie!”  
He ran off towards a group of boys, one of them being Gilbert. He snickered at Alfred and said something to him that I couldn’t hear from across the playground, making him punch Gilbert in the arm and stamp his foot. Emma and Angelique let my arms ago and huffed.   
“Do you really live next door to him? I feel sorry for you!”

Emma and Angelique quickly changed the subject back to where I came from, and while we picked daisies and made them into chains, the bell rang, calling us back to our classrooms. When we sat back down, Mrs. Hedervary announced that our first classroom assignment was to write a paragraph about where our families came from. Some children protested that they wouldn’t have anything interesting to say since they were only from America. She gave a warm laugh and told them to ask their parents to tell them about their family tree.  
“Sure, you might have only lived here, but your family goes so far back, farther than you can imagine! Some of you might even have family tracing back to royalty from hundreds of years ago!”  
Excited chatter broke out amongst the class. Mrs. had to spend a minute talking over everyone to explain the assignment. A paragraph about where my family came from, and a family tree. That was what we had to work on for the rest of the day. She had a small library of history and geography books, and since she had a computer in the classroom, she said that anyone wanted to look up where their last name came from could ask her and she would help them. We were allowed to talk in our groups as long as we were doing our work. While I was starting my crude map of Belarus, something nudged my leg under the table. I looked under my desk to see Gilbert’s leg retreating. I gave him a dirty look as he smiled smugly at me. Emma and Angelique were too engrossed in their conversation to notice.  
“Alfred’s my friend, you know.”  
“Yeah, you can keep him. He’s just my neighbor.”  
“That’s funny, he told me he was going to try and get you to be HIS friend and have you be in our group. But we can’t have girls in our group, you know.”  
My eye twitched at his ‘no girls’ rule.  
“Well, you don’t have to worry. I don’t wanna be his friend either, or yours. No boys in my group.”  
He laughed at me before returning to his work on his own map.

Our school let all the students out early on the first day just in time for lunch. Mrs. Hedervary dismissed as the bell rang, calling out to not forget our very first assignment. I quickly packed up my few papers and took off to find my brother. He told me to find him at the flagpole at the entrance to the school to ensure we always got home together. He was already there when I arrived. I took hold of his hand as we waited silently for Alfred and Matthew to get out. Alfred came shouting out of his classroom, with Matthew right behind him. They took off past us, running to a stop sign and spinning on it with one hand while waiting for the crossing guard to give an okay to cross. We joined them with a grumble about how they should probably wait up for us before just leaving us. Matthew seemed to take notice and gave an apologetic look, but Alfred continued to spin. Ivan growled and I squeezed his hand to keep him calm. “They’ll probably listen more when they realize they can’t go home without us,” I tried to reassure him. He hid behind his pale pink scarf, ears burning. Ivan doesn’t like it when he gets ignored. When the crossing guard gave us the okay, we crossed, Alfred zooming ahead. Reaching the sidewalk while we were still in the street, he jeered and tried to get us to run. We knew better. The second we touched the sidewalk Alfred zoomed off again, zipping past startled parents and students. Ivan had just about enough of his behavior, letting go of my hand and quickly gaining in him. Alfred turned around and gave a half cry of excitement and fear, trying to pick up his pace. Matthew and I shouted at both of them to stop running before they hurt someone or themselves, having to give in to running to catch up with them.

We ran like that all the way home. Mr. Francis was watering some potted plants outside, looking confused at our group. Ivan and Alfred had stopped in front of my house, hands on knees and puffing. Once he caught his breath, Ivan got in Alfred’s face and yelled at him, telling him that he needed to wait up for us, and Ivan was the oldest so he needed to listen. Alfred stuck a tongue out at him, mocking when he spoke. Mr. Francis turned his attention completely away from his flowers and called Alfred over with a stern tone. Matthew kinda stood behind me and my brother, watching Alfred get a stern talking to. Mr. Francis pointed for Alfred to get inside, said something to himself in French, and called Matthew over to come inside as well. Matthew gave me and a brother a nervous but sweet group hug, then took off inside. Ivan told me to go home and that he would explain to Mr. Francis what happened. So I left and went to our home. When I went to the door, I found that it was locked. A note was tucked under the welcome mat.

‘If I’m not home before you are, Francis said you’re always welcome. I’ll pick you up when I get home”

Ugh… I was looking forward to going home, too.


End file.
